Democrats campaign on eve of primary
PITTSBURGH – Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded familiar themes as they crisscrossed Pennsylvania on Monday in a search for votes a day before the state’s key presidential primary.
It is the first presidential primary in six weeks, in what has become a grueling Democratic nominating process. Clinton continues to lead according to polls released Monday, but the latest financial statements show her campaign is being outspent and is in debt.
Clinton needs to win the state, although her backers insist even a small victory would keep her presidential hopes alive. Obama, who generally has trailed Clinton in state polls here, insisted his campaign would do well.
Clinton began her day in Scranton, where her father was born and where she spent summers in the 1950s and 1960s, then moved on to Pittsburgh.
“In the next 36 hours, do everything you can, convince people to go vote who say they are not going to vote,” Clinton said in Scranton. “Take them to the polls. Call your friends and neighbors. Make the case for the kind of results that we desperately need in America again.”
Clinton stuck to her main campaign themes, promising to work for universal health care, affordable college educations and renewable energy, and she repeated that her experience made her most fit to be president.
“It is the toughest job in the world, and you have to be ready for anything: two wars, skyrocketing oil prices, an economy in crisis,” Clinton said at a rally at the iconic Pittsburgh Plate Glass Building. “Well, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Obama met with prospective voters at Montgomery Community College in Blue Bell on Monday afternoon, where he used a town-hall-style meeting to lay out his plans for governing before about 50 people.
His appearance in Montgomery County had a strategic purpose. While Clinton leads in statewide polls, Obama hopes to do well among black voters in Philadelphia. But if he is to have any real chance of overcoming Clinton’s advantage, he needs to win suburban areas like this one that are home to upper-income, educated voters.
Obama said on his first day in office that he would call in his national security team to begin planning an end to the Iraq war. He said he would give the Pentagon “a new mission: Set a timetable for withdrawal out of Iraq.”
Obama remains about 140 delegates ahead of Clinton, 1,649 to 1,509, according to the latest Associated Press count, although other tallies show him with a different lead. The Obama campaign Monday morning announced that Enid Goubeaux, a superdelegate from Ohio, has endorsed the Illinois senator.
There are 158 delegates at stake in Pennsylvania. To be nominated, a candidate needs 2,024 delegates.
“I’m not predicting a win,” Obama said in a morning interview with KDKA radio in Pittsburgh. “I am predicting it’s going to be close. And that we’re going to do a lot better than people expected.”
The latest poll shows Obama, who has heavily outspent Clinton in Pennsylvania, still trailing in the popular vote. Clinton leads Obama 51 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in the Democratic primary, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.